Customer Reviews

Howdy Doody:the Lost Episodes 5pk Set [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Howdy Doody was probably the most successful TV show for kids of it's time. From 1948 until 1960 everyone knew when it was Howdy Doody time. In the early 70s, several of Buffalo Bob Smith's fans were in college and nostalgic for Howdy Doody, so Smith made a number of college campus personal appearances. And in 1976 a New Howdy Doody Show appeared as a Monday thru Friday half hour in syndication. But contemporary kids didn't know these characters, and it is doubtful that of their many parents, who saw the original, did more than tune in just to relive some memories. For one thing the Howdy marionette was not the original but an "updated" version with softer features and "real" hair.

It is the 1976 series that appears on these tapes - and here's the big mistake. The show would start a new story on Monday and have a chapter a day to be resolved by Friday's show. The next week would see a whole new storyline. But the geniuses who put this tape set together left off the Friday show in each of the first four videos included (one "storyline" per tape), and put all the endings on the fifth. What's the sense in that? Whp wants to see incomplete stories with endings and resolutions on a separate tape?

I gave the set as high a rating as I did because the color and picture are good - but will even people who remember this new series fondly be pleased? Doubtful.

What John Ewaniuk says is true, about the Friday shows (the conclusions of the weeklong stories) being left off each tape. But in the five-tape box, the fifth tape does include the Friday shows from the four serials. As for the shows themselves, this is not Howdy Doody at his best, but I knew that going in. It's just great to see the characters in color and in pristine quality. Although I was somewhat disappointed that Bill LeCornec was cast as the prissy Nicholson Muir (a play on the names of the show's two producers) rather than reprising his role as Chief Thunderthud (he did play Thunderthud again a decade later on the 40th anniversary special, which is a better representation of the original series than these shows). Oddly enough, I never saw the original show when it aired, having been born seven years after it ended. Still, I was a regular viewer of the revival series when it aired in Chicago in the late 1970s. Since then, I've seen tapes of the original series and yes, it is a lot better. So, these shows being what they are, my only major quibble with the box is that the closing credits are cut off each show rather abruptly, so not only do we not get to see who played who (although this info is available if you want to take the time to look it up) but in at least one case, Bob Smith's "Doodyville" song is cut off. An additional note: After they released the box, they put out two additional tapes, "Music Appreciation" and "Dilly Dally's Birthday," which are sold individually. As here, the quality is great, but in this case, the Friday shows really are missing, since there is no "fifth tape" to collect them on. Also, unlike the shows in the box set, the opening titles are newly redone, with a distracting computer-animated corporate logo dropped into the middle of them. The ending credits have been remade in a similar fashion. I would rather have had the original shows as they were. Regardless, I'm glad these shows have been made available...I never thought I'd ever see them again. (It's interesting that this set was released just months after Bob Smith passed away.)